Color Help creating a photo epub. . .

[Wolofoloto]

Like the title says , I'm looking to create a photo epub that will look good on "most" devices. I say most because I understand I cant please everyone.

I'll explain what I'm trying to do and how I want it to look , so hopefully you guys can give me a few pointers.

Each page will consist of one picture (of a plane) and below it a sentence or two describing said picture. Once together I will be using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) to publish it and try to sell it online. I believe their max is 50 meg for the epub , but I would like to keep it down to 10-15 meg because they wont charge a download fee if kept to 10-15 meg.

My questions are . . .

1) What is the optimal size for a picture per page?

2) Ideal DPI?

3)Would 100 pictures per book be enough for a book? (Have roughly 400 high res aviation pictures , roughly 25 meg each)

4) What are the ideal tools to use right now?

I'm not going completely blind into this , I have done "some" research , but I'll leave it at just that...."some" heh.

I did a quick google search came across this website and this thread . . .

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=119829

Read through it and found that Sigil might be a good tool for me to use , though the thread is a year old , is Sigil still viable to use or is there something else , something better , something more user friendly?

I haven't dove into Sigil yet , just downloaded it as well as Scribus.

and

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Wolofoloto

My questions are . . .

1) What is the optimal size for a picture per page?

Most Kindle devices have 600x800 pixel screens. This means that the initial presentation of the image would need to be somewhat smaller to allow your text description to appear on the same screen, if that is desired. Kindles have a "tap-to-zoom" function that enlarges any image to full screen. You could create 600x800 images and size them smaller in the ePub using height and width attributes in the <img> tag allowing the full resolution to be used when the user clicks on the image.

The AZW/MOBI format is limited to 128k images as a maximum (the new KF8 format may raise this bar, but most Kindles can't use the KF8 segment and fall back to the segment using the older format). It is best to make sure you size your images somewhat below this limit using a high quality image editor (e.g. Photoshop) to avoid having the ePub>MOBI converter to a quick-and-dirty image resize.

2) Ideal DPI?

The images' PPI settings (often incorrectly labeled DPI by even the most expensive apps) is irrelevant. It is no bearing on image quality unless there is an inch size forced on an image, which of course is not the case with any digital screen display of an image.

3)Would 100 pictures per book be enough for a book? (Have roughly 400 high res aviation pictures , roughly 25 meg each)

I can't help you there.

4) What are the ideal tools to use right now?

Tools are a personal choice. These are my primary choices:

1. Kindle Previewer 2 - It is critical to use this tool to preview a MOBI conversion. No other ereader app is as reliable a proofing tool. It can also be used to convert an ePub to MOBI.
2. Sigil - This is an excellent tool for building the ePub. If you should choose to use another tool to build the initial ePub you'll still find Sigil valuable for editing and validating the ePub.
3. Calibre - This is an excellent tool for converting between formats. It performs some formatting steps automatically; steps that require some manual effort when using other tools.
4. Photoshop - This one is decidedly not free (the others on my list are free) but is the best tool for scaling and cropping to shape. If you use Photoshop, save the images you intend to place in the ebook using its "Save for Web & Devices" option and not the regular Save and Save As... options. The latter two include a lot of unnecessary metadata and ancillary data in the files that is not needed in an ebook, making the images bulkier than necessary.

These tools are all you actually need, provided you are building an ePub as your source document.

[BruceMcF]

Originally Posted by Wolofoloto

Like the title says , I'm looking to create a photo epub that will look good on "most" devices. I say most because I understand I cant please everyone.

I'll explain what I'm trying to do and how I want it to look , so hopefully you guys can give me a few pointers.

Each page will consist of one picture (of a plane) and below it a sentence or two describing said picture. Once together I will be using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) to publish it and try to sell it online. I believe their max is 50 meg for the epub , but I would like to keep it down to 10-15 meg because they wont charge a download fee if kept to 10-15 meg.

My questions are . . .

1) What is the optimal size for a picture per page?

What is the aspect ratio of your pictures?

If you want maximum resolution and these are color pictures so that the tablets are a key market, then:

(1) as far as I understand, iPads cannot display more than 2 megapixels

(2) Nook Tablet and Nook Color cannot zoom more than twice their display dimensions of 1024x600 ...

1600x1200 is a reasonably good pixel resolution for 4x3 aspect ratio. It allows Nooks to zoom in 2x and fits within the iPad image limit at 1.92megapixels. For an 8x5 aspect ratio, 1760x1100 is 1.93megapixels. For an 8x7 aspect ratio, 1368x1197 just inside the 2x limit of the 7" skinny tablets, and comfortably inside the iPad limit at 1.64megapixels.

[SUSGOD]

I have found an easy way to make PDF Photo Albums. I set up a folder with the photos labeled in number order. In PowerPoint, I select Make Photo Album and point it at the photo folder, selecting all images. I again select all images in the Make Photo Album dialogue box. Presto! The PPT photo album is automatically created with photos sized to each page. I can select a background and create a Title Page, or re-arrange photos, if desired.

Then I SAVE it as a PDF file. Wow! That is so easy - and it looks great on my Nook Color!

Originally Posted by Wolofoloto

Like the title says , I'm looking to create a photo epub that will look good on "most" devices. I say most because I understand I cant please everyone.

-snip-

and

[RAH]

Originally Posted by Wolofoloto

Read through it and found that Sigil might be a good tool for me to use , though the thread is a year old , is Sigil still viable to use or is there something else , something better , something more user friendly?

I haven't dove into Sigil yet , just downloaded it as well as Scribus.

Sigil is still a good tool and it works well, assuming you know HTML and css. I do NOT recommend Scribus at all. It is a beast, IMHO. I tried using it for a newsletter once and although I got it done eventually, it was like pulling teeth.

PagePlus by Serif, with version, 6 has the ability to produce epubs. I only have version 5, but compared to Scribus it is wonderful. I now use PagePlus to produce the newsletter I mentioned. MUCH better and easier, and more stable. I don't know how well it works for epubs with the new version, but I have to think it is probably quite good, because it does most other things very well.

I would think that it should be easier to produce a photo epub using PagePlus than trying to use Calibre and Sigil, especially if your HTML and css is weak.

Edit: here is a link to info about PagePlus: http://www.serif.com/pageplus/

Also, you can get it cheaper on Amazon.

[MartyTX]

Originally Posted by SUSGOD

I have found an easy way to make PDF Photo Albums. I set up a folder with the photos labeled in number order. In PowerPoint, I select Make Photo Album and point it at the photo folder, selecting all images. I again select all images in the Make Photo Album dialogue box. Presto! The PPT photo album is automatically created with photos sized to each page. I can select a background and create a Title Page, or re-arrange photos, if desired.

Then I SAVE it as a PDF file. Wow! That is so easy - and it looks great on my Nook Color!

SUSGOD,

Thanks for the info. I have Microsoft Office 2000. It didn't have a Photo Album option in Powerpoint. Tried a Google search and was amazed that Microsoft is still offering a free Powerpoint 2000 add-on for Photo Album.

I have to take back some of my MS cheapshots ...

[sumbody]

I know a lot of time has passed since this thread started, but for the benefit of any future readers, Susgod's method works beautifully.

I use Powerpoint 2007, so had to download a free add-on from Microsoft, but then saved as pdf and used Calibre to export that PDF as an epub. I was using all images resized to 453 x 661 px, and every page was just perfect.
Saved all sorts of problems I previously had, trying to use MS Word/MS Excel/Sigil/Calibre and various commercial offerings. This Powerpoint method was just so easy....